Stifel Financial Acquires Banking Firm Business Bancshares

Business Bancshares is the parent company of the Business Bank of St. Louis, which had around $620 million in total assets, $536 million in total deposits and $516 million in loans as of the end of March, according to the paper.

The Business Bank of St. Louis will be run as a separate subsidiary bank serving clients of Stifel’s Global Wealth Management unit and Institutional Group, the Post-Dispatch reports. Stifel Bank & Trust now has $15.2 billion in assets, according to the paper.

“This acquisition represents another step in the build-out of our banking services in our Global Wealth Management business,” Ron Kruszewski, Stifel’s chairman and CEO, says in a statement cited by the Post-Dispatch.

For the bank, partnering with Stifel will help it expand its lending capacity, Larry Kirby, CEO and president of Business Bancshares and the Business Bank of St. Louis, says in a statement cited by the paper.

Stifel’s latest foray into banking services comes following a quarter in which large banks have taken stronger trading revenue seemingly at the expense of smaller brokerages.